By Tina Dolen

Thursday

Feb 7, 2013 at 12:01 AMFeb 7, 2013 at 11:42 AM

Surfacing (a true story)

By Tina Dolen

A rusted, ten-year old, boxy Volvo with a forty pound wooden dory strapped upside down on the roof is not aerodynamic. I know this because no matter how far I pressed down on the accelerator, the needle couldn’t get past 80. This was probably for the best, since I was in a 40 mph zone. I sped from Cape Cod to Newport at dawn, on my way to Coaster’s Harbor Island where the starting gun for the nearly two mile Save the Bay swim would go off in approximately thirty minutes.

I had practiced the line I would give to the police officer who might pull me over: “Well you see, sir, I’m a burn victim. Take a look here and right here. Those are fresh scars from the latest skin graft. No, no, I’m not on my way to the hospital. I’m actually on my way to the start of Save the Bay, and it would be wonderful if you would provide a police escort so I can get there in time!”

I rounded a curve and suddenly hit the brakes as Naval Station Newport’s Coaster’s Harbor Island appeared before me. An endless line of cars with turtle-like mounds on top formed a conga line approaching the starting area.

Two volunteers unloaded my boat for me. I wasted no time.

I had to find a volunteer on the beach willing to row my safety boat and another to be a spotter, to make sure I didn’t drown. Most swimmers have the sense to show up with these people. I would have too, had the race not been postponed a day due to bad weather, causing me to lose my rower and spotter.

I scrambled down the rocky bank. “Will someone row my boat?” I shouted to the crowd milling about on the beach. People glanced at me, and then stopped, mouths open. Who is this crazy person? “Can someone spot me in the rowboat?” I yelled.

My purple and red racing suit mimicked the colors of my scars. My arms were swirls of twisted tissue. My partially burned-off chin formed a grotesque gap below my mouth. My legs were covered in raw “donor sites,” great blocks of skin that had been removed as if with a cheese slicer to serve as grafts for the burned skin. I had no doubt they thought I was a raving lunatic.

Two years earlier, I nearly burned to death in a freak fire. As a former athlete, the half year I spent in Brigham and Women’s Trauma Unit and the endless hours of physical therapy were not unlike a competition. I raced to heal and return home to my beloved baby.

About a year and a half after the burn, I began training with a former Olympic trials coach, making me more fit than most swimmers on the beach, but no one could tell by looking at me.

The swim was due to start in ten minutes. I darted up and down the beach like a bird dog making soulful eye contact with every person I asked, beseeching them to help me. They only stared, confused and uncertain. What was this woman thinking of, this waif without a rower or spotter? One man offered to call 911.

Tears stung my eyes as I thought of all that training in vain.

Finally, desperate, I approached a tall man with black hair and glasses and asked if he would please row my boat for me! Pleeeeeze!

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“Of course I can swim! You’ll see!”

I think I embarrassed him into volunteering, even though he had a tenuous grasp on the fundamentals of rowing. His name was Mitch.

“It’s a cinch,” I told him. “Now hurry Mitch, we have to drag this boat to the start.”

I was now rushing so fast I nearly knocked over a heavy set little woman wearing a purple straw hat. I had a hunch.

“Would you come in my boat with this nice gentleman so I can do the race? All you have to do is sit there,” I said. She looked terrified, but my pleading gaze must have persuaded her. She told me her name was Polly as she reluctantly shuffled over to the boat.

We finally waded and wangled our way to the start, oars flying skyward, dory tilting starboard, then port, then starboard as my novice rower tried to get the hang of the boat. The salt water stung my raw skin as I warmed up, reminding me this race might take its toll. I glanced behind at my “race crew” and could barely believe it. I had a rower who couldn’t row and a spotter who was terrified I would disappear.

“Are you sure you know how to swim?” shouted Mitch, peering over the side.

By then I was getting a little exasperated.

The gun went off.

I dropped to the waterline, easing into a familiar freestyle. Before I knew it, I was half-way across the bay! I took deep breaths of salt air and watched the Newport Bridge pilings slide by as I stroked closer and closer to the finish at Potter’s Cove in Jamestown.

I swam straight for the big orange buoy marking the finish line, and finally stood with the gritty mud of the cove oozing through my toes. I’d placed fifth woman and twenty-fourth overall out of hundreds of swimmers! The victory turned the advancing tide of my despair.

“Look at me!” I wanted to shout to the hundreds of people behind me, still splashing toward the shore. Instead of being ashamed, I was suddenly proud of my scars. I grinned maniacally, euphorically. There I was, wrapped in welts, feeling like my former self. The soothing waters of Newport restored my sinking spirit and convinced me to move there permanently in 2004.

An hour later my intrepid and exhausted crew arrived.

“It was awful, I thought we’d capsize,” cried Mitch.

“Can you swim?” I asked.

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